Vagit Alekperov did not earn 8.5 billion rubles

Lukoil President Vagit Alekperov estimated at 8.5 billion rubles. the company’s lost profits from fuel price controls, Interfax reported. “Today, our losses, lost profits in 4 months, which we put in order to stabilize, are about 8.5 billion rubles,” said Alekperov, without specifying which particular months are involved.

Oil companies have not raised gas prices since June. They agreed to restrain prices in exchange for the non-increase of excise taxes and the promise to compensate them for domestic supplies of fuel from 2019, that is, to introduce a “damping mechanism”. But in September, oilmen began to raise wholesale fuel prices (growth on the stock exchange was about 6%) in order to compensate for losses at gas stations. This led to a loss of profitability by independent gas stations.

At the end of October, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev threatened to introduce protective duties on the export of oil and oil products, if Russian oilmen did not stop the rise in prices. This was avoided: on October 31, representatives of oil companies at a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak agreed to sign agreements on stabilizing the situation on the fuel market. According to the protocol of the meeting at Kozak, the government set maximum prices for fuel for each region and gave oil companies immunity from tax and anti-monopoly claims for price containment. The average wholesale price of AI-92 in Russia until January 2019 should not exceed 53,501 rubles. for 1 ton, Ai-95 - 56,649 rubles, diesel fuel - 51,201 rubles. This means that 1 l of fuel should cost no more than 39.86, 42.77 and 43.11 rubles in the wholesale market. respectively. Monthly production and sales of petroleum products should be 3% higher than the corresponding month of 2017.

The agreement between the government and the oil industry will be valid until the end of March 2019. Kozak on Monday, November 12, said that all major oil companies had signed the agreement. Alekperov called the measures developed by the government justified. “We are confident that this will provide an opportunity to stabilize the market, especially these two months, because from January 1, the damping rate mechanism will start working. He will allow us to resolve the issue, ”the businessman explained. In addition, an effective measure to stabilize the market could be a floating excise rate in effect in some countries. “It clearly regulates the external market with the internal one and does not allow jumps in the price of oil to directly respond to the internal market,” said Alekperov.

Alekperov also commented on the idea of ​​reducing oil production. In his opinion, the current price of oil at $ 70 per barrel suits both consumers and producers. The market is balanced, and producers do not need to cut production. Lukoil, in his words, in 2019 does not plan to reduce production for either Russian or international projects. Since May, after the lifting of OPEC + restrictions, Lukoil has increased oil production in Russia by 30,000 barrels per day, Alekperov specified. In 2017, the company produced a total of 87.4 million tons of oil. This year she planned to increase oil production by 1%.